Within the context of the application, a constrained environment means an environment (or zone of the space with a given shape and size) being defined around the position of the aircraft and being able to contain objects (or obstacles), with which the aircraft should avoid getting into collision, including for obvious safety reasons or merely for flight comfort reasons, these objects being either stationary objects such as mountains or hills or mobile (or dynamic) objects such as meteorological disturbance zones, including stormy zones or other aircrafts.
The method described below applies to any type of flight trajectory being intended to be followed by an aircraft. It could be, in particular, a flight trajectory transmitted by the flight management system of the aircraft or by another usual system able to provide a prediction of the geometry of the future trajectory. It could also be a deposited flight plane or a trajectory generated during the flight phase.
The method described below aims at giving the pilots of the aircraft the possibility to evaluate the validity of the flight trajectory being considered in a dynamic environment (with a stormy zone or other airplanes progressing in the same space for instance) with the object, including, to support the crew in making on board a decision in such a constrained environment.
There is no tool for supporting or aiding the evaluation of a trajectory in aircraft cockpits. In particular, a usual navigation display of the ND (<<Navigation Display>>) type displays the current flight plane, but does not supply any information regarding, for instance, margins associated with this flight plane.
The method described below aims at remedying these drawbacks. It relates to a method for aiding the crew of an aircraft, in particular of a transport airplane, to evaluate any flight trajectory being intended to be followed by this aircraft in a constrained environment, that is in an environment able to contain stationary and mobile obstacles.